This book, first published in 1984, analyses the critically important Cold War issue of the Soviet national security decision-making process dealing with weapons acquisition, arms control and the application of military force. It conceptualises Soviet decision-making for national security from Stalinist antecedents to 1980s modes, and examines the problems of decision-making concerning weapons development, defence research and development and SALT negotiations. It also focuses on the decision-making processes which led to the use or threatened use of military force in Czechoslovakia (1968), the Middle East (1973) and Afghanistan (1979).